Lottery games have become popular in many jurisdictions in the United States and elsewhere. As used in this disclosure a “lottery game” is a game that is played with a set of predefined game records or tickets, each game record or ticket representing a chance in the game. Each game record or ticket is associated with a result or outcome in the game. Some results represent wins in the game and call for the player to receive cash or other prizes, while other results provide no payout.
Traditional lottery games are played with a paper lottery ticket. These lottery tickets are printed with graphics consistent with a theme of the game. The printed graphics include indicia that are correlated to a result associated with that ticket, and thus indicate the result associated with the ticket. In traditional paper lottery games, the indicia indicating the results associated with the ticket are covered or obscured until the ticket is issued to a player so that no one can determine the result associated with the ticket until after it is issued to a player. Once the player obtains the ticket, he or she may remove the cover or obscuring material to read the results of the ticket.
The paper tickets in a traditional paper ticket lottery game are distributed to sales locations in large groups of tickets commonly in the form of a continuous role of material with individual tickets separated by perforations or break lines. The tickets are randomly ordered in the group and are sold and distributed sequentially from the randomized group of tickets so that the results in the lottery game are distributed to players in a random order unknown to the players or ticket sellers. Once a player receives their paper lottery ticket, he or she may remove the cover or obscuring material and determine if the particular card has a winning or losing result.
Traditional lottery games have been implemented in electronic form in which the tickets comprise electronic data structures or data records rather than physical paper tickets. These electronic tickets normally include at least an indicator from which the result associated with the ticket may be determined and a ticket identifier. The electronic tickets, that is, the data records representing electronic tickets, are commonly grouped in data files and distributed in some random order from the file (either sequentially from a randomly ordered file or randomly from an ordered file). These electronic lottery tickets are purchased through an electronic player terminal. In the course of play, a player requests an electronic ticket or play in the game at the terminal and the results of the electronic ticket assigned to the player are displayed at the terminal.
A major advantage of electronic lottery games is that the results may be displayed in a variety of interesting formats that enhance the entertainment value of the game. Also, since paper tickets are not created or distributed, electronic lottery games avoid the costs associated with printing paper tickets and then distributing the paper tickets. Electronic lottery games also avoid the security costs associated with handling paper tickets. On the other hand, paper ticket lottery games are more familiar to players and regulators and may have a higher level of acceptance for that reason. However, both electronic lottery and traditional paper lottery games are identical in providing predetermined and readily verifiable chances of winning or losing in the game. The amounts paid out to players in the game and amounts held by the lottery operator are also predetermined.